Information Literacy Journal

The latest edition of the Journal of Information Literacy is out now!

The journal publishes innovative and challenging research articles and project reports which push the boundaries of information literacy thinking in theory, practice and method, and which aim to develop deep and critical understandings of the role, contribution and impact of information literacies in everyday contexts, education and the workplace.

You can read 12 engaging, peer reviewed articles, book reviews and there's a link to previous issues.

The Journal of Information Literacy (JIL) is the professional journal of the CILIP Information Literacy Group.

Posted by Jenny Foreman, Scottish Government Library and co-chair of The Information Literacy Community of Practice for Scotland.

Information literacy in Scotland: making it mainstream

The work of the Community of Practice aand specifically the featured in CILIP Update last month (June 2015). The article Information literacy in Scotland: making it mainstream explained how the Community of Practice (CoP) The Right Information: Information skills for the 21st Century Scotland is bringing together information professionals and representatives from other professions to promote information literacy as a national policy issue in Scotland. 

The article by John Crawford, myself (Christine Irving) and Lauren Smith provides some background information on the CoP and it's engagement in the:

• Royal Society of Edinburgh's report Spreading the Benefits of Difital Participation
• Cross Party Group on Digital Participation at the Scottish Government

How the CoP works closely with the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and CILIPS to advise them and to promote information literacy. More recently working with the Scottish Council for Vountary Organisations (SCVO) on Digital Participation including information literacy in their training agenda. 

The main body of the article reported on the information literacy symposium held in Glasgow on the 13th February 2015. The aim of the symposium was to bring information professionals and representatives from other professions together to promote information literacy as a national policy issue in Scotland.  The event was very successful. 

To read all about the event see Information literacy in Scotland: making it mainstream

Dorothy Williams attended the event and wrote a piece for the Journal of Information Literacy Information literacy in Scotland: challenges and opportunities. In her piece Dorothy identified that the main issues were "digital participation agendas and the need for strategies to overcome digital exclusion". The

clear message coming from all speakers was the need for partnership working and that librarians and libraries needed to be central to those partnerships. Real progress in digital literacy or IL development needed collaboration and communication across sectors, as well as identification of areas of common interest.

She identified a number of issues and dilemmas which emerged during plenary and group discussions. However said that:

Despite these concerns the tone of the day was positive and the event enabled sharing and communication of ideas, establishment of new cross-sector contacts and an opportunity to press forward the joint message to Government of the value and importance of information literacy.

As you would expect it is a good piece from Dorothy. 

Journal of Information Literacy, Volume 8 (1) June 2014

Journal of Information Literacy, Volume 8 (1) June 2014 is now published and includes articles from LILAC 2014 and book reviews including John and I's book.  

Editorial

A matter of perspective, Jane Secker

Articles

Assessing information literacy programmes using information search tasks . Nikolas Leichner, Johannes Peter, Anne-Kathrin Mayer, Günter Krampen

Bilingual workplaces: integrating cultural approaches to information literacy into foreign language educational practices. Alison Hicks

The creation of a university library outreach programme to develop the information literacy of further education students: an interactive approach to support transition. Lisa Anderson, Stephen Bull

Articles from LILAC

Exploring the lived information-seeking experiences of mature students.  Sarah Clark

Projects

AMORES - Discovering a love for literature through digital collaboration and creativity. Geoff Walton

Information literacy: a matter of course. Elizabeth Tilley

Graduate information literacy in online education using the embedded librarian model. Lauryl A. Lefebvre, Martha C. Yancey

Conference corner

LILAC 2014 Conference report: a student’s perspective. Amanda Brennan

LILAC and IL: Views from outside the academy. Penny C S Andrews        

Book reviews

Book Review of Heine, C. and O’Connor, D. 2014. Teaching information fluency: how to teach students to be efficient, ethical and critical information consumers. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. Jennifer Wilson

Book Review of Hepworth, M. and Walton, G. (eds). 2013. Developing people’s information capabilities. Bingley: Emerald. Evi Tramantza

Book review of Baker, K. 2013. Information literacy and cultural heritage. Cambridge: Chandos Publishing. Lorna Hughes

Book review of Crawford, J. and Irving, C. 2013. Information literacy and lifelong learning: policy issues, the workplace, health and public libraries. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Natasha Skeen

Great ‘Tips for Aspiring IL Authors’ LILAC 2014 session

I didn't manage to see Jane Secker and Cathie Jacksons' session where they shared ‘Tips for Aspiring Authors’ on writing for publication. Specifically the Journal of Information Literacy.

In Jane's blog lilac-2014-reflections-and-thoughts Jane talks about the session saying that 

"It was aimed at people who wanted to turn their LILAC presentation into a full peer-reviewed paper and attempted to de-mystify the peer review process and provide people with a structure for an academic paper. There was a chance to look at a short project report and think about how this could be worked up into a peer reviewed paper. Our slides are on the ILG’s Slideshare account."

The slides contain a lot of useful tips and links to resources /guidelones. I would recommend that if are thinking of writing an article or not very confident then have a lot. If you have never written an article below then it is a good journal to write for. So go on and share / publish your thoughts and work. 

Using assignment data to analyse a blended information literacy intervention: A quantitative approach

Good news story from Geoff Wallton.

His article - Using assignment data to analyse a blended information literacy intervention: A quantitative approach Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 45 (1) pp53-63, written with Mark Hepworth has been selected by the American Library Association's Library Instruction Round Table's (LIRT's) Top Twenty Committee as a 2013 Top Twenty article.

The committee noted that:

[t]he study represents a powerful advocacy piece for using a blended approach with an online discussion component in delivering information literacy to foster higher order learning in students 

Geoff says that

Quite a few people have asked me for a copy of this article in the past, so to make it more accessible and for anyone to use in their evidence base to convince our non-info pro colleagues of the value of IL I have put freely available pre-publication version of the article in our institutional repository.

Please visit this website to access it: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/13184/

If anyone would like to discuss the article please get in touch.

Best wishes,

Geoff

Dr Geoff Walton,

Lecturer Information Sciences,

Faculty of Engineering and Environment,

Northumbria University,

Room 038,

Pandon Building,

Camden St.,

Newcastle upon Tyne,

NE1 8ST

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 191 243 7144

Email: geoff.walton@northumbria.ac.uk

Skype: geoff.walton2012